Earl Wilkinson: Media outlook for 2013

As executive director of the International News Media Association, Earl Wilkinson is constantly on the road, learning and sharing insights about our industry. This year’s annual outlook report is informed by INMA membership in 81 countries. Earl shared his observations as the keynote speaker for the Key Executives Mega-Conference produced by the Southern Newspaper Publishers Associaiton, Local Media Association and Inland Press Association. Some notes and highlights:

There remains a cultural civil war — print vs digital — that is draining our energy, attention, resources and ability to meet our challenges. … while we all search for new strategies, we’ve learned that culture trumps strategy every time. (The very direct implication is that we must change our culture).

We need to re-order the news industry to new expectations of consumers and advertisers. Where do you fit into their expectations?

Our touchstones of journalism, trust, our role in democracy does NOT connect with consumers; those are a reflection of you. It’s not about us, it’s about them … Our marketing of ourselves is not effective, it’s spinach marketing.

A word about scale: I don’t know of anybody in this room that can do it (face our future, meet our challenges) by themselves. It’s all about scale, scale, scale. Collaboration. How good are you at collaborating beyond your building?

Some observations from Earl

Top search terms on the INMA website:

Social media

Ad effectiveness

Ad sales

3 top opportunities for 2013:

Video

Second-wave mobile

Revenue diversification

3 top issues for 2013:

Identifying growth

Being more relevant

Managing complexity

2 goals for 2013:

Manage print for profit

Manage digital for growth

2 questions to answer:

How to fill revenue hole left by declining print advertising

How to maintain relevance (Earl suggests the news industry look at the Netflix model: buy once, consume over many platforms)

Tips:

Accelerate digital change, digitial competencies, multiplatform.

From Amazon’s Jeff Bezos: Base strategy on things that won’t change.

Your relationship with readers and advertisers must transcend platforms, products.